The Texas lawmaker heading the House Committee on Homeland Security is pre-emptively urging the Obama administration to reject an expected humanitarian request by the president of Egypt to release a blind, ailing Egyptian cleric from a life sentence for terrorism.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, a former federal prosecutor and counterterrorism expert, urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to “stand firm against pleas” by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to release Omar Abdel Rahman.

“Releasing a terrorist who plotted against the United States and has American blood on his hands would be seen as a sign of weakness throughout the Muslim extremist world,” McCaul said in a statement.

Rahman, 74, has been serving a life sentence since his conviction in 1995 on terrorism-related charges stemming from the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. That truck bomb attack from the garage killed six and injured hundreds of office workers who fled into the streets.

Omar Abdul Rahman

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden ordered operatives back to the landmark buildings in southern Manhattan to finish the job on Sept. 11, 2001 with a follow-up attack that destroyed the towers and claimed nearly 3,000 lives.

Rahman has been held at the Federal Medical Center at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex, in Butner, N.C., since Feb. 22, 2007, according to Chris Burke, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

Rahman reportedly suffers from diabetes and had a small tumor discovered on his liver shortly before he was moved to the prison medical complex.

Burke declined to comment on Rahman’s illness or his medical condition.

“He’s serving a live sentence with us,” Burke said.

Asked if the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had ever released an inmate serving a life sentence in response to a request by a foreign leader, Burke replied: “I’m not aware, anecdotally, of any similar situation like that,” Burke. “So the answer would be, no.”

Morsi told CNN in an interview that he would ask President Obama at a White House meeting expected before the end of March to release Rahman on humanitarian grounds – or to at least ease prison restrictions that limit his contact with family members.

“I want him to be free, but I respect the law and the rule of law in Egypt and the United States,” Morsi said. “I don’t want a violation of the rule of law, but there are also many humane aspects. There could be things like visitation, assistance, his children, his family, assisting him. He is an old sheikh and sick and blind. We need to respect that in this sheikh.”